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In those days, and for many years later, there was only a mule-path over the adjacent Grimsel Pass, but now there is a carriage road leading out of the Rhone glacier's basin northwards to Meiringen, whilst the old-established Furka road, at the other side of the amphitheatre, leads eastward to Andermatt, the St. Gothard, and the Lake of Lucerne. Hence three great roads now meet at Gletsch.
That same day, in the latter half of it, I went sullenly over the Furka; exactly as easy a thing as going up St James' Street and down Piccadilly. I found the same storm on its summit, but on a highroad it was a different affair. I took no short cuts. I drank at all the inns at the base, half-way up, near the top, and at the top.
To explain my track I must give the names of all the high passes between the valleys. That between A and C is called the Grimsel; that between B and C the Furka.
It was considered one of the wonders of Switzerland, and was pictured in an exaggerated way in travellers' books. In 1873, when I first drove down the Furka road and saw the Rhone glacier, this wonderful, apron-like, terminal expansion of the glacier was still in existence. It has now completely disappeared.
BY H. HARRIS, AGENT About seven o'clock in the morning, with perfectly fine weather, we started from Hospenthal, and arrived at the MAISON on the Furka in a little under QUATRE hours.
Early in June, all sailed for England together, and at last, in the middle of July, all found themselves in Switzerland, at Prangins, Chamounix, and Zermatt. On July 22 they drove across the Furka Pass and went down by rail to Lucerne.
I judged it best to go to bed and rest several days, for I knew that the man who undertakes to make the tour of Europe on foot must take care of himself. Thinking over my plans, as mapped out, I perceived that they did not take in the Furka Pass, the Rhone Glacier, the Finsteraarhorn, the Wetterhorn, etc.
We wander under the trees by the main road, watching the dim passers-by as though they were the phantoms of a dream. We say little to one another. We turn aside into a little pathway and come to a bridge over the turbulent Reuss, hurrying down towards the Devil's Bridge in the gorge below. Far away over the Furka ridge a pallid glow preludes the rising of the moon.
Suddenly above this landscape soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka.
Suddenly above this landscape soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, shooting into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar the double peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal not unlike the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka.
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